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'Overwhelming' increase in hack attacks

Hackers using well-known vulnerabilities are "overwhelming" companies and remote working will make matters worse, security vendor Internet Security Systems (ISS) has warned.

The vendor's Internet Risk Impact Summary Report for the second half of this year predicts that hackers will target people using broadband access for home offices, wireless technologies, and file sharing and messaging applications.

This increased risk is said to be a result of corporate laptops and workstations being used outside the organisation on home-based broadband networks.

While FTP and HTTP are still among the top 10 attack destinations, attacks have decreased on these ports by an average of 46 per cent and 96 per cent respectively over the last year and a half.

This is likely due to patching of vulnerable code-bases and better protection of the FTP and HTTP ports in particular.

The number of serious security incidents increased by 13.7 per cent in the second quarter of the year.

According to ISS, this quarter-on-quarter increase is due to hackers using older threats and techniques that are widely known but not patched by IT departments.

"The increase in threats is overwhelming companies that cannot keep up with the demands of patching systems," said ISS spokesman Chris Rouland.

"The challenge most companies must deal with is discovering and protecting the most critical risks within their organisations.

"As a long-term goal they need to minimise vulnerabilities, as hackers will try to attack less-protected systems and emerging platforms."